Latin texts, translations and other resources from the Latin Therapy Group at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge

Tuesday, 20 May 2014

Wellcome Library Field Trip

The Latin Therapists ventured outside Cambridge for the first time this year, for our termly field trip on 9th May. We took a trip to London to visit the Wellcome Collection.

Debby telling us about MS.46.

We were welcomed, and enthusiastically and knowledgeably guided, by the Wellcome's medieval manuscript specialist Dr Elma Brenner (herself formerly a member of the Latin Therapy Group). We got to see 8 medical and astronomical manuscripts.

MS.405, a 15th-century leech-book

We started by gathering around to examine a rare 11th-century Anglo-Saxon medical manuscript (MS.46). We moved on to look at a single leaf from a 15th-century folding almanac (Elma has blogged about another almanac in the Wellcome Collection here). And we pored over a tiny 15th-century leech-book, whose author vented his frustrations by demanding liquid payment in two languages!